Manny Pacquiao opposes birth control in the Philippines

Manny Pacquiao, the boxing champion turned politician, has weighed into a
charged debate about the use of condoms in the predominantly Roman Catholic
Philippines by saying he would never have been born if contraceptives were
freely available.

Mr Pacquiao, who was elected to the Filipino parliament last year, has sided with the local Church against a new government bill to introduce free contraception and information about safe sex.

“God said go forth and multiply,” he said, after a meeting with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. “He did not say go and have just one or two children.”

The boxer said that he would never have been born to become the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter had his parents used birth control.

Mr Pacquiao, 32, is the fourth of six children, although his parents separated when he was young after his mother found out his father was living with another woman. He himself has four children, including a daughter named Queen Elizabeth. The boxer is so popular in the Philippines that many observers expect he will eventually become president.

Mr Pacquiao is a devout Catholic, often making the sign of the cross inside the boxing ring and always celebrating his victories with a Mass at the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene in Manila.

The new bill is being put forward by President Benigno Aquino, who is still enjoying a honeymoon period after a landslide election victory last May and who has said he is willing to risk excommunication from the Church over the issue.

"I have been taught in school, which was a Catholic school, that the final arbiter is really our conscience," said the president. "We are not looking for a fight with the Church. I have invited them many times so that we can have discussions, and we have focused on areas where we can agree."

The reproductive health bill, which would also introduce reproductive health and sexuality classes in schools, appears to have the support of the people. Many Filipinos believe that the country’s crushing poverty, which has seen a third of the population survive on a dollar a day, is the result of a rapidly-growing population.